SPITZER VS. LEGISLATURE: A SHOWDOWN OVER POWER; AS VOTERS BACKED HIS CALLS FOR REFORM, THEY ALSO RETURNED ALL BUT ONE INCUMBENT TO THE LEGISLATURE

BYLINE: By Erik Kriss Albany Bureau

Last week's record landslide will catapult Eliot Spitzer into the governor's office Jan. 1, but a central question hangs over the Capitol: Can the "Sheriff of Wall Street" clean up state government?

Democrat Spitzer campaigned on his record of prosecuting corporate corruption as attorney general and promised to confront Albany's status quo with the same kind of vigor.

He pledged policy changes, ranging from closing hospitals to cutting property taxes, and process changes to rid state government of gridlock and favoritism. He won 69 percent of the vote.

But a cold reality set in even as Spitzer rolled to victory: Voters threw out just one of the 191 state lawmakers seeking re-election Tuesday.

And it is a divided Legislature - dubbed the most dysfunctional in the nation - that jealously guards its own power and has long resisted many of the changes Spitzer advocates.

The governor-elect won't wait on lawmakers, according to his advisers, and plans to say so in a major reform speech later this month.

"He will talk about steps he can take unilaterally to change the culture and what he will ask the Legislature to do to change," said Spitzer's spokesman Darren Dopp.

Even before the election, government reform groups developed a list of 50 things the new governor could do immediately through executive order and other administrative tools.

The Legislature's top Republican, Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, said he wants to work with Spitzer and suggested the Democratic-controlled Assembly has played obstructionist.

When it comes to Spitzer's $6 billion property tax cut plan and his proposals for health care reform, equitable education aid and open government, "We're there," said Bruno, R-Brunswick.

"We're going to help him in any way to meet an agenda that we've had out there for years," Bruno said.

"I want Eliot, as the governor, to open up the whole process," Bruno added. "Every meeting where you discuss policy ought to be public. I don't want to be one of three people in a room (historically, the governor, Senate majority leader and Assembly speaker) and don't intend to be one of three people in a room. I want it open."

GOP support questioned

Still, it will all come down to specifics.

For instance, Spitzer promised to end the "pay-to-play" culture in which lobbying and campaign contributions win favorable legislation.

"I welcome a discussion on what that means," Bruno said, noting favors in exchange for campaign contributions are already illegal. "We live in a free society. ... If you want to send money and support good government, people you believe in, you ought to have a right to do that."

Spitzer's proposals to strip legislators of the power to redraw their own districts and to launch taxpayer financing of election campaigns are long shots, according to Gerald Benjamin, a political science professor at the State University College at New Paltz and a former Republican Ulster County legislator.

"Republicans in the Senate are not going to go along," Benjamin predicted, noting those Republicans vastly outspent Democrats this year to maintain control of Senate seats they gerrymandered themselves.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, was an early Spitzer supporter, but Capitol watchers suspect Silver and his enlarged Assembly majority will resist change nonetheless.

Assemblyman William Magnarelli, D-Syracuse, disagreed - though he did predict legislative operations will remain untouched.

"We have to run in two years," Magnarelli said. "How are we going to have a finger pointing at us, saying, "You're against change'? It's going to be very difficult to say "No' to this guy."

Spitzer himself set the bar high on election night, reiterating his oft-stated pledge that "the road to responsive and responsible government would begin on day one. Some may have heard that as little more than the slogan of a campaign. Tonight," he told supporters, "you should hear it as the promise of a governor."

Experts said Spitzer's success could hinge on his ability to build coalitions with legislators and interest groups.

That's something he didn't have to do as attorney general, where he was armed with a unique law giving him sweeping prosecutorial powers over corporate corruption.

"As long as he doesn't have a Democratic majority in both houses, I'm skeptical," said Syracuse University political science professor Robert McClure. "Even under those conditions, the Legislature has institutional interests different from the governor."

Still, some took heart when Spitzer brought the presidents of the state AFL-CIO and The New York State Business Council together the day after the election to discuss ways of revamping a workers' compensation system that pays low benefits but charges high insurance premiums.

"That's a great place to start," said state Sen. David Valesky, D-Oneida, a Spitzer supporter and self-styled reformer. "That's the leadership I think he's going to bring."

Old-fashioned political intimidation could work, too, suggested Jeffrey Stonecash, another SU political science professor.

Stonecash noted that two months into his first term, Gov. George Pataki, a Republican, ran ads in Democratic Assembly districts he had won criticizing the Democratic incumbents for resisting his calls for tax cuts.

"Members paid attention," Stonecash said, and Assembly Democrats went along with a major income tax cut.

But in ensuing years, Pataki didn't follow through. Spitzer, Stonecash suggested, will need to.

Spitzer's reform plans

Create an independent redistricting commission to redraw political maps, replacing maps drawn by lawmakers.

Prohibit those who do business with the state from contributing to candidates for state office or from giving gifts to state employees.

Reduce campaign contribution limits.

Eliminate and consolidate public authorities that have outlived their usefulness.

Introduce debt reform that covers public authority debt, which is used for so-called "backdoor," non-voter approved borrowing.

Enact a Medicaid law to give the state more power to prosecute fraud and to provide financial rewards for private whistle-blowers.

Appoint, rather than elect, state Supreme Court justices.

Political math

Despite lots of rhetoric about dysfunction and reform in Albany, the next state Legislature will look a lot like the old one:

195 of the 212 incumbent lawmakers sought re-election. Four lost in September primaries, leaving 191 running Tuesday. Just one of those - state Sen. Nicholas Spano, a Republican from Westchester County - lost.

Two of those who didn't seek re-election were from Central New York: Assemblyman Jeff Brown of Manlius and state Sen. Ray Meier of Western, in Oneida County. Both Republicans lost bids for different offices.

Who's in the room: Instead of two Republicans (the governor and the Senate majority leader) and one Democrat (the Assembly speaker), next year's "three men in a room" will be two Democrats (governor and Assembly speaker) and one Republican (Senate majority leader).